Exhausted and defeated, I slid onto Ruby’s dusty bedroom floor and curled my knees up against my chest, wracking my brain for ideas. The window above my head revealed a massive full moon lighting up the otherwise black Parisian sky. I followed the moon’s glow along the windowsill, down the wall, and along the dark wooden panels of the floor when suddenly a gleam of light shimmered underneath Ruby’s bed.
Unbelievable. In all of my searching, I hadn’t thought to look under the bed. Clearly I wasn’t cut out to be a sleuth.
Stacks of old books, dusty fashion magazines, and designer shoe boxes filled up the cramped space. I removed everything out from under the bed, but one lone magazine sat just beyond my grasp. I lay down on the floor and wiggled my fingers as far as I could reach, but before I got to the magazine, my hand hit something hard. When I peeked into the space, I realized something was weighing down the fabric underneath the box spring. I scooted farther underneath the bed and ran my hand along the lump, which I could now tell was in the shape of a box. With a little more probing, I was able to find a tear in the box spring material. With my heart pounding just a little bit faster, I slipped my hand up inside the box spring and pulled out a medium-size black box, its silver clasp reflecting in the soft moonlight.
With shaky fingers, I unhooked the clasp and opened the once-hidden box, desperately hoping to find something—anything—that would lead me to François Lefevre, and ultimately lead me back home.
I found a stack of old black-and-white photographs lying on top. I leaned closer to the window, allowing the moonlight to brighten the faces that smiled back at me. The first one was of a little girl wearing Mary Janes and a peacoat that stretched down to her knees. She was holding onto a small boy’s hand and two adults stood behind them, their hands resting on the children’s shoulders.
By the way warm tears sprang to my eyes, I knew that the little boy had been Ruby’s brother, the adults had been her parents, and that cute little girl was Ruby.
Looking at this picture gave me such a profound sense of grief that I wondered if something bad had happened to them. I closed my eyes and tried to remember, but all I saw was Ruby as a little girl, leaning into her father’s legs, smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
I pushed the memory from my mind and flipped through the rest of the pictures. Most of them were more recent photographs of Ruby and Titine in costume together, Ruby’s piercing gaze and beautiful features so captivating, so alluring, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I couldn’t believe I was her.
But as I flipped to the last photograph, my chest tightened. It was the only one in the stack that was in color, and it was a picture of Ruby, Titine, Delphine, and Gisèle, all in their red sequined costumes, cleavage abounding, silver and black feathers in their hair, their arms draped around each other as if they were the best of friends. Ruby wore the red, heart-shaped pendant around her neck, proving once more that Antoine was right. But that wasn’t what was upsetting me.
I’d seen this picture before.
This wasn’t the typical déjà-vu feeling I’d experienced over the course of the past day, though. It was a memory I had from my life as Claudia.
Grandma Martine had a copy of this exact photograph hidden in an album in her home in San Diego. I’d come across it back when I was a nosy teenager, rummaging through a box of her old things. It had been stuffed behind another photo, as if she’d wanted to forget about it but hadn’t had the heart to throw it away.
“When was this taken, Grandma?” I’d asked as I revealed the old, crinkled photo to her.
Her eyes had flicked toward the photograph, but when she focused in on the image, she immediately tore her gaze from it. “Oh, that was a long, long time ago. During my young dancer days in Paris.”
“Were these good friends of yours?”
“Yes, dear. They were my best friends.”
“Did you keep in touch?”
“No, dear, we didn’t.”
“Why not?”
My grandmother’s distant, sad eyes fluttered toward the window. “Because, sweetie, the girls to either side of me, Gisèle and Ruby…they both died shortly after that photo was taken.”
Back in Ruby’s room, my grandma’s words ringing through my ears like a busy signal on a dead phone, I let the picture float from my hands, its jagged edges swooshing through the air and landing softly on the hardwood floor.
If Gisèle and Ruby had both died shortly after that picture had been taken, that meant there wasn’t much time left for me.
Since this was my past life, it made sense that Ruby must’ve died young. Because how else would I have been reborn as Claudia in 1977?
I recalled Madame Bouchard’s words from this morning about my past-life revisit. About having only five days to accomplish some monumental task, which would forever correct the course of fate.
As a bitter draft squeezed its way through the cracks in the windowpane and sent goose bumps running down my arms, I wondered if I’d been brought back to stop Ruby’s death altogether?
But if I did figure out how she was going to die and somehow found a way to stop her death before it happened, what would that mean for my future life? Would I ever be reborn as Claudia? What would happen to my baby? Would I go on living this life as Ruby instead? And on the flip side, if I let her death happen, would I wake up as Claudia? Pregnant, in the dance studio, with Édouard by my side?
Or maybe my purpose here had something to do with my grandmother. After all, it was beyond insane that we’d been best friends in this life.
I leaned my forehead up against the cool glass, trying to calm the burning in my chest and the racing of my heart. No matter what any of this meant, I was afraid. I was afraid of how Ruby had died so young, and scared that I was going to find out all too soon.
My eyes flickered down to the black box sitting at my feet.
There was more.
I picked up a folded, yellowed piece of paper and opened it up to find Ruby’s birth certificate. I remembered this piece of paper. I remembered the way it smelled like an ancient library book, the way the lower left-hand corner had been torn just the slightest bit, and the way Ruby’s name was spelled out in faded black print.
Ruby Fiona Kerrigan born on December 18, 1933, in New York City, New York.
To father, Rowan Patrick Kerrigan, and mother, Katherine Elise Walsh.
So the blonde hair and green eyes made sense; Ruby’s parents—or my former parents—had been Irish. And by her date of birth, I knew that the body I was now inhabiting was only twenty-five years old going on twenty-six. The thought of being ten years younger should’ve excited me, but as I stared at the names Rowan and Katherine on the birth certificate and glanced over at the family photograph I’d laid out in front of me, I remembered them. And by the sorrow that engulfed me, I knew they were gone.
What Titine had said to me earlier made even more sense now.
To be honest, Ruby, you’re the strongest one of us all, and you’ve been through much worse.
I took a deep breath in an attempt to shake off the grief. I didn’t want to unearth the deep-seated memories of how Ruby’s parents had died. First, I had to find out what else Ruby had stashed away in this box.
My hand hovered over a delicate violet handkerchief that stretched over the remaining contents. I ran my fingertips over Ruby’s initials, embroidered in white at the corner of the soft fabric, before unfolding it.
A photograph torn into four jagged pieces spilled to the ground.
Arranging the pieces of the photo together, I discovered a picture of Ruby with another man—one I hadn’t yet met. His arm was wrapped so tightly around Ruby’s shoulders that his knuckles had turned white. Ruby smiled into the camera, but it wasn’t the same seductive, carefree smile I’d seen in the other photos. The corners of her lips were tight, her jaw clenched, and fear traced her brow.
As a chill worked its way up my arms, I tilted the photo toward the moonlight to
examine the man’s hand, already knowing what I would find.
A long, jagged scar.
This was the man who’d pointed the knife at me in the apartment with the New York City skyline. The man who that sleazebag club owner Jean-Pierre had saved me from. The man who’d left that deep, awful scar on my back.
And it was his voice I’d heard on the bridge earlier tonight. I was sure of it.
He’d come to Paris for Ruby…for me.
One more glance at his slick, black hair, his hard jawline, and his eyes that were as dark and empty as a night with no stars brought a name to the tip of my tongue.
“Thomas,” I whispered. “Thomas Riley.”
A quick flip of the torn photo pieces confirmed my memory.
Scrawled in faded black ink, a message from him made me shiver with fear.
My dearest Ruby,
Until the day you die, you will forever be mine.
Yours truly,
Thomas
Thomas’s wording made me remember the threatening note I’d found underneath my pillow when I’d first arrived. I was fairly certain now that these notes had been written by the same hands. All I needed to do was compare the handwriting.
But just as I was standing up, the final contents inside Ruby’s secret box grabbed my attention.
Lining the bottom of the box were three large envelopes filled to the brim with cash—clear evidence of Ruby’s side projects.
And to the right of the cash, a shiny black pistol.
My blood ran cold at the sight of the gun. Could this have been the gun that had taken Gisèle’s life? Was Ruby really a murderer? Someone who would kill a friend just to make it to the top?
Why else would she have a gun hidden inside her mattress? If it was for self-defense against this Thomas creep, wouldn’t she have kept the gun somewhere accessible, like inside a dresser drawer?
Suddenly, I remembered Titine’s words from earlier this morning…
As far as we know, they have no real evidence to convict you. They haven’t even found the murder weapon.
They hadn’t found the murder weapon because Ruby was no idiot.
She’d hidden it well.
I ran a finger over the shiny, cool metal and remembered the last time I’d held a gun like this. It was the night of my father’s murder. I was only ten years old, and after that night, I’d sworn to myself that I would never again hold a gun in my hands.
But as I stared down at this one, I felt a strange, instinctual urge to pick it up.
My new hands acted on muscle memory, picking up the gun with ease, wrapping my long, delicate fingers around the trigger and aiming the barrel straight ahead. Closing my eyes, I saw these same hands, the fingernails painted a blood red, pointing this gun at something…or someone.
But just as I focused in on the incomplete memory to see who Ruby—or who I—had been pointing the gun at, a shrill ring pierced through the silence of the apartment.
The gun clattered to my feet, my heart pounding like a hammer to my chest.
It was the phone.
I fumbled to answer the old telephone, my hands shaking so hard they almost dropped the shiny black receiver on the floor.
“Allô?”
“Ruby, c’est François.”
It took me a moment to regain my bearings. To forget about the creepy photo of Thomas, the night I’d lost my dad, and the memory I’d been having of Ruby pointing the gun.
But then it clicked. I recognized his voice. François Lefevre, the politician who could potentially clear my name from the murder investigation.
Thank God.
“François, I’m so glad it’s you. I need to ask you—”
“No, Ruby. You do not need to ask me anything,” he spat in a thick accent, clipping me off with his sharp tone. “It is you who will be answering the questions. Why have the police just been to my home? What have you told them about me? About us? And why do they think I am involved in the murder of that pute?”
François had just called Gisèle a whore. This wasn’t going to go as smoothly as I’d hoped.
“I didn’t tell them anything about you or about us. But they have a photo of us outside the club…of you paying me. It was taken the same night that Gisèle was murdered.”
“Merde. How do they have a photo of us? Who gave it to them?”
“I’m not sure. Detective Duval didn’t tell me how he got the photo. He did tell me, however, that if you and I don’t tell him the truth about what we were doing together that night, the photo could be leaked to the press.”
“C’est pas vrai. Putain. Do they know who I am? Do they know what I can do to their careers if they even think about releasing that photo?”
“Yes, François. Detective Duval knows exactly who you are. But an innocent woman was murdered that night, and they think I could’ve been the one responsible, and that I was hoping to use my connection with you to keep me from getting caught.”
“C’est ridicule. After all, you are the only woman I have ever met who knows exactly how to get what she wants. Certainly, you would not be so stupid to murder someone to get it, would you?”
Stealing a guilty glimpse of the pistol at my feet, I swallowed hard. I didn’t know for sure if Ruby had killed Gisèle, and although signs were pointing toward the possibility that she had, finding a way home to my baby had to take top priority…even if it meant lying.
“Of course not,” I said, hoping my hesitation hadn’t convinced him otherwise. “The problem is that I had a little fall this morning during rehearsal, and I’m having a hard time remembering what exactly happened that night. Were you and I together during the murder?”
“Oh là là. You are serious? You do not remember what happened that night?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Anything you can tell me about the way things played out, and specifically the timing of events, would be really helpful.”
“Time is something I do not have a lot of. My wife will be home any minute. I do not know if we were together when the murder actually took place, but it is likely that even if it happened in the next room, we would not have heard anything.”
“Why is that?”
“La musique, of course. It is so loud. And so were you, ma chérie. You are always loud when you come to me.”
I swallowed my disgust and forged ahead. “Were you still in the club when I found Gisèle?”
“My driver had already picked me up when I saw the sirens racing down the street. I only read about the murder in the papers on Monday. I did not know that you were the one who found her. Nor do I care. What I do care about is that my name is not connected to this murder, and that the photo is not released to the press.”
“I understand. Just answer one more question for me: You don’t happen to remember me ever mentioning anything about wanting to harm Gisèle, do you?”
“Ruby, in case you have forgotten, we don’t do a lot of talking when I visit you at the club.”
“Please, just answer the question.”
“No, you have never said anything of this nature to me. You are driven, yes, but mean-spirited, no.”
A buildup of tension released from my chest. At least this was a step in the right direction.
“So in order to clear this up, would you be willing to discreetly admit to the police that you were with me that night, during the murder, and that I’ve never mentioned anything to you about wanting to harm Gisèle? If we both tell them the truth about our relationship, they will have no reason to release that photo to the press, and this will all be over.”
“No, Ruby. This will not be over. There is still the question of who gave the police that photo in the first place. Someone was watching us. And whoever it was either wants to harm my career or they want to frame you for this murder. Or both.”
I gripped the phone, thinking of the potential enemies I’d met—or remembered—in my first twenty-four hours as Ruby.
Véronique and Thomas Riley.
Cou
ld one of them have taken the photo of us?
“I understand your predicament, Ruby. But you are asking a lot of me. You are asking a married man with a high-profile political career to admit that he was having sex with a prostituée. And still, since we do not know who took the photograph, there will be no guarantee that it won’t somehow find its way into the wrong hands.”
I wanted to ask why a married man with a high-profile career would be paying women for sex in the first place, and doing so outside the club in plain view, but now wasn’t the time to take the moral high ground. I was, after all, the prostituée in this scenario.
“I understand what I’m asking. But telling the police the truth could at least buy some time. For both of us. And with your connections, it won’t be too difficult for you to make sure the police do not release that photo and maybe even find out who gave it to them in the first place, n’est-ce pas?”
“Merde. It was only supposed to be sex.”
“Please, François. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I need your help.”
Silence traveled through the line while I waited for François to say he would help me. To say that he didn’t want me to go to prison for a murder that he at least believed I didn’t commit.
“D’accord. If this is the only way to keep that damn photo out of the papers, I’ll do it. I refused to answer the detective’s questions today without my lawyer present, so I will arrange a private meeting with the detective first thing in the morning to clear up this mess. I will admit to our liaison and tell him that you had nothing to do with the murder. That you were with me the entire time. And although I never intended to use my political stature in such a way, I will do what I must to keep the integrity of my family name. I trust, in return, that you will continue to keep our relations quiet, except for your conversation with the detective, of course.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, of course. Thank you so much, François.”
“One more thing, Ruby.” His voice took on the same hard tone he’d had at the beginning of the conversation, making me wish there wasn’t anything else.
Dancing with Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance) Page 10
